Sepia Saturday: Business trucks

The theme photo this week features Finnish radio engineers on top of a broadcast van. So what have I got in my collection that might match? I found a few photos of trucks used by several generations of the Phelan family in various businesses over the years. Unfortunately this exercise has made me realise that there are a few gaps so I have some homework to do.

Firstly I should say that while the photos of the trucks are interesting the background is equally important for family history. We see images of buildings and landscapes not usually seen in 'posed' photos.

The first three photos are of a truck used by the Sims Bros general store in the small town of Mitiamo in central Victoria in the 1930s. The business was called Sims Bros but when these photos were taken it was owned by Roy Phelan who married Annie Sims. She was the daughter of C W Sims who bought the business from a Mr Dyke. (As an aside, I like the phone number - Mitiamo 2. Annie's brother, Charlie, set up the first phone connections in the Mitiamo area, a private line between several businesses and a farm at Pine Grove that the family owned. Mitiamo 1 was their home number in Mitiamo. Both numbers were probably applied when the official PMG lines were installed.) 

The truck used by Sims Bros general store to deliver goods throughout the Mitiamo district.

Neil Phelan and the Sims Bros delivery truck.

Doug Phelan and Pluto, Mitiamo.

Charlie Sims started making ice cream in Mitiamo and he had a nice little business going where he sold icecream at the Mitiamo railway station. After WW2 he moved north to Swan Hill and established an icecream factory. His nephew, Neil Phelan (my husband's father), worked for him for a while in the 1950s. This delivery van, a Chevrolet, was used in the business at Swan Hill. The sign on the van reads 'Sims Ice Cream. The cream of the north.'

Philip and Alan Phelan beside the Sims Ice Cream van, Swan Hill.

Neil Phelan at the Sims Ice Cream factory, Swan Hill.

The sale notice for Sims Ice Cream business
The Argus 20 November 1954

After operating a Post Office and Telephone Exchange at Toolamba in the mid-1950s Neil Phelan's next business venture was a fuel depot in Kerang. He delivered fuel around the town and out to the farmers in the district. Neil was already familiar with the fuel industry because of his father's and grandfather's involvement in the general store. He purchased this new 1957 Chevrolet truck, made in the USA, from Wattie Corrie, Bendigo. It was originally red with white trims on the grill, wheel hubs and grill but Mobil decreed that the truck had to be repainted Mobil red. The truck was used to carry bulk fuel and drums.

Mobil Depot, Kerang. Neil Phelan with his Aunt Ina and family, Philip, Alan and Shelley.

Philip and Alan Phelan on dad's truck at the depot.

The business needed a second truck so Neil bought a Chevrolet Maple Leaf, made in Canada. It was secondhand.

The Mobil fuel depot's second truck. Neil Phelan with Shelley and Kay.

Neil moved from Mobil over to the Amoco fuel depot in Kerang and used the truck in the next photo to deliver heating oil. It's a 1948 Morris Commercial truck. He purchased it off a local farmer. This truck has recently been donated to the Kerang Museum where it is being restored. The Amoco depot also had a bigger truck, a 7 ton Bedford, but I don't have a photo of that one so I'll have to search some more family albums and slides to see if I can find one.

Neil retired from the fuel business after about 30 years and no longer owns any trucks.

The Morris Commercial truck - still in the family but long after it had finished its working life.

I suggest you travel on over to Sepia Saturday to see what others have made of the theme photo.

Sepia Saturday: Iron work

This week's theme photo for Sepia Saturday shows people with practical and artistic skills employed in a  factory.

Well, I've searched my photo collection and failed to find anything similar, so I'm heading off on a tangent. The illustrations are not sepia but it is an old trade so I'm half way on theme.

A few years ago we were in northern New South Wales on holiday and one memorable activity was the morning we visited an industry in the small town of Uralla. It was an iron foundry, the oldest working foundry in Australia.

The buildings weren't large but I was mightily impressed. We saw a blacksmith in action, manipulating the hot iron like it was a piece of dough. We saw many old tools and examples of items they had produced over the years. We saw the patterns and moulds for the delicate-looking cast iron lacework. Until that day I hadn't fully understood the difference between wrought iron and cast iron. The blacksmith produces wrought iron from iron that, because it has less than 1% carbon content, is soft and malleable. It can be hammered and rolled. Cast iron is made from iron that has a higher (3%) carbon content so it can be melted and poured into sand moulds. It is hard and brittle and cannot be hammered or moulded.

The cast iron process is amazingly skilled. We saw the molten iron being poured into sand moulds and then placed into presses until they were cool enough to use. Some of the moulds were tiny, others very large. Most of the moulds are very old pattens. It's hard to imagine sand being used for such delicate work and as I write this I wonder if they use a particular type of sand.

Our visit coincided with a that of a historian from the New South Wales museum who was cataloguing each item in the foundry - every one of the hundreds of  tools and patterns was being photographed and described. And it is just as well because I have just done a web search and it appears that the foundry has now closed as a business and is only open by appointment as a museum.

We are all familiar with the work produced by a blacksmith or cast iron foundry. Houses, shops, public buildings and cemeteries from the 1800s and early 1900s were decorated in iron or had iron incorporated into the structures like verandah posts and street lighting. And bridges. Several years ago we visited the first iron bridge in the world, at Ironbridge near Shrewsbury in the UK. It was built in 1779 and the work and skills that must have gone into the building of that beautiful bridge is amazing.

The first iron bridge in the world is at Ironbridge in the UK.

For a number of years I was a guide at a local cemetery and ironwork got a mention in my tours along with famous people, interesting people, headstone architecture and symbolism. Sometimes it's easy to overlook the ironwork in the older sections of a cemetery even though it is very common. The headstones and memorials are the key focus. But we should stop to appreciate the delicate lacework, forget-me-knots, anchors, doves, crosses, finials, inserts, ornaments, posts and pickets all made from iron. These examples are all photos I took a decade ago in Eastern Cemetery, Geelong and research for this blog has made me curious to go back and see if there are makers' badges. It seems a shame if the work of the craftsmen is unacknowledged. There were several foundries in town so I imagine they are well represented.

The upside-down torches symbolise the finish of the 'race of life'.

You can see the work of other skilled people over at Sepia Saturday.